Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/40

 general recognition of the maxim that property has its duties as well as its rights, the more general residence of the proprietors of land in Ireland, the large emigration of the unemployed, and the rise of wages from 4s. or 5s. to 8s. or 9s. per week, have greatly tended to improve the condition of Ireland.

2. That, in these circumstances, it is wise to give a security to tenants, by such Bills as yours or Lord Mayo's, that the duties of property will not be violated by the landlord with impunity; that a tenant who improves, if ejected while he pays his rent, is entitled to compensation for his outlay. But that no scheme, violating the rights of property, which we are told were respected by Robespierre and the French Convention, and which are held sacred by the English nation beyond any other nation, ought to be adopted. That even a plan which, without violating the rights of property, proceeds on the supposition that Irish tenants are what they are not, and that they will do what they will not do, ought to be rejected.

3. That, considering the progress made from 1829 to 1868, we may rely with confidence on the progress to be made from 1868 in another forty years, if justice, peace, and order are maintained, and the moral grievances of Ireland are redressed.